I think it’s easier to be a pessimist, but I don’t think it’s better.
Pessimism is a protective posture that makes it easier to view the outside world. Pessimism can give you a sense of control: “I know what’s going to happen, and it’s going to be bad.” Playing the odds of fallen human nature means that eventually you’ll be right, that you’ll able to assure yourself that you saw it coming all along, and that you were only right to be so pessimistic about life. Pessimism can be a simple, protective bubble to guard me from the dangers of hope and the inevitable, horrible feeling known as disappointment.
Dangers of hope? Did I really write that? Did you recoil a bit when you read it? I hope so. We know we should be hopeful, and I suspect this is true for non-Christians, too. Yet we know the all-too-familiar darkness of disappointment. We wanted something, and it didn’t come, so now we try to guard our hearts, hold things loosely, and try desperately to trick our own emotions and desires into not really wanting the thing that we desperately want.
But the tricks we play on our own emotions don’t really work. As Emily Dickinson wrote, “The heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.” That doesn’t mean the heart always wants the right thing (Jeremiah 17:9). The heart often needs to be redirected to its proper object (Psalm 37:4). If not, Augustine famously said our hearts will be “restless, until they find their rest in Thee.” Years later, the Puritan Thomas Chalmers memorably wrote that we will not be cured of idolatry (excessive love for God’s good creation, or love for improper things) until we find, “The expulsive power of a new affection.” Trick your emotions all you want, but in the end, what we need is a rightly-ordered love.
Am I starting to sound like a spiritual Pollyanna? Possibly. But maybe your pessimism is just rising up to protect you from potential disappointment again. Maybe you’ve become “institutionalized” by the prison of pessimism, just like Red. Even if you don’t know Red or the movie that features him, you probably know his philosophy. In a certain movie[1], Red’s friend Andy sits down at lunch after a week in the hole, solitary confinement, claiming that the beauty of Mozart’s music kept him sane. All of Andy’s friends think he’s crazy, and Red asks him what he’s talking about? Andy hesitates, wondering why no one understands, before simply saying, “Hope.” Red, a veteran of 20+ years at Shawshank Prison who knows how to survive within its unjust confines, has heard enough. He responds gravely, “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”
We’ve all been where Red lives, not to Shawshank but to the island of despair, that place of pessimistic protection where it’s just easier not to hope, not to dream big, not to dare or risk or dance with danger or invite insanity and disappointment into our lives.
You may be wondering by now, “What kind of person is writing this? Is he one of those annoyingly relentless optimists who dismisses all hardship in the lives of others?” Fair question. Time to show my cards. I’m a pessimist by nature who desperately wants to be an optimist. I’m also a pastor, who realizes that my pessimistic bent needs to be killed, mortified, and vivified into something better.
So when I see a realistic optimism in someone, I grab hold and don’t let go, like I did with a random quote I tracked down on the internet almost a year ago. As a Reformed Presbyterian pastor who prizes “the truth that accords with godliness,” (Titus 1:1) my pessimism gets triggered during theological controversy. “Oh, no. Here we go again. What did they say? How bad will this get?” But into that sea of pessimism, this quote appeared and kept me afloat: “We must stand fast. And we must out-live, out-rejoice, out-love, out-preach, out-serve, and out-die the false teachers and errorists.”[2]
We must stand fast – We don’t have to be the loudest voice on social media, but we do have to speak and stand up for our beliefs.
We must out-live the false teachers – Jesus outlived Herod (Matthew 2). We may not outlive every false teacher, but we can be sure that the faith once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints (Jude 4) will outlive them.
We must out-rejoice the false teachers – Negativity may gain a following in a cynical world, but only joy can sustain us and our people. Eventually, even the pessimists begin to wonder if that dangerous thing called hope isn’t worth another try.
We must out-love the false teachers – Recently, I asked the officer candidates in our church, currently in training (a weekly interactive Bible study with some extensive preparation and feedback), why they ended up at a Presbyterian church. Almost to a man, the answer was “people” more than Presbyterianism. They were loved well, and it happened to be by Presbyterians. Praise the Lord for that pleasant surprise.
We must out-preach the false teachers – One thing I know Alistair Begg got right was this simple philosophy on preaching: “Think yourself empty, write yourself clear, pray yourself hot, and preach yourself empty.” Amen. Now, give me the strength to do it again, Lord.
We must out-serve the false teachers – I know at least one widow who landed at our church because of the love and sisterhood of another widow who helped her through the toughest stages of grief.
We must out-die the false teachers – The Puritans used to say that one of the goals of the Christian life was to prepare to die well. My gut says that is another long article (or maybe a book I’m not yet qualified to write) for another day. But at the very least, it means living with hope until we die. Because when we die, that is when “our faith [that in which we hoped] shall be sight.”
That’s how I want to live, with hope in the face of hopeless circumstances. I want to learn what Red learned but not as late as he did. At the end of the movie, Red has finally been paroled, and Andy (who was wrongly convicted and is now living on a Mexican beach after a multi-year plan to escape prison) has left a letter for Red. Andy writes, “Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
Pessimism may seem easier, but hope is better, says this pessimist who wants desperately to be an optimist, by God’s grace.
-Pastor Matt
[1] All illustrations from movies, now and in the future, are not endorsements. I learned as a youth pastor to say, “Not that I’m recommending that movie, because I would never do that.”
[2]Ligon Duncan, in Risking the Truth, edited by Martin Downes, 202. The book is 15 years old, and the theological controversy it’s discussing is largely past. The encouragement seems evergreen.